Eat the Damn Cake

Yesterday’s post and some of the comments on it made me think about beauty as a spectrum. You know: ugly, plain, decent looking, pretty, very pretty, beautiful, super sexy, MEGAN FOX (I can’t think of any Victoria’s Secret models names off the top of my head). It’s a very persistent idea. It follows me around places. It enters without knocking. It sees things it shouldn’t. It won’t go away. But it’s wrong.

“See?” say the researchers who are studying beauty and sex and love and fun, “When everyone in this room divides into couples, they always pick partners who are the same level of attractiveness as themselves. See that?”

But I don’t really see it. And I’m not just saying that to be like, “No….we’re all one family….we’re all a part of the human race… I don’t see differences, I only see how we’re all united by our gorgeous souls” or something. I mean, I think the couple who the researchers are defining as the most attractive looks kind of boring. Normal, I should say. They’re just the closest to a certain ideal of beauty. They’re tall and thin and blond. Maybe it’s my short, dark, Eastern European Jewish genes, but tall blondness isn’t my favorite look. No offense to tall blonds! You guys are definitely lovely! But my eye is drawn to people who look more mysterious.

That’s just me. And sure, I’m weird. But so are a lot of people. In fact, I think we probably make up the majority.

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In old books, especially, women and girls are constantly being described as “plain.” “One sister was so lovely it looked as though she were made of the finest spun gold. The other was mousey and plain.” There’s always “the plain one.” The perky, thrilling girls who torment and delight and influence everyone around them are never plain. The plain girls drift silently to the back. They vanish. We assume that they must be dull, boring, and slightly stupid as well. Plainness is like a disease; it infects every part of a person.

People don’t use the word a ton these days, but I’m still terrified of it. I’m waiting for the day when someone will call me “plain” and all the potential and vivacity and spunk will drain out of my life and I will put on a big brown bonnet and retreat to my corner.

(there it is. waiting. source)

But seriously, I hate that word.

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Are women taking over the world? Or are they dropping out where it counts?

Yesterday I watched two TED talks. The first was by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. It was called “Why we have too few women leaders.”

Sandberg talks about ways to encourage girls and women to succeed in corporate environments. It’s lonely at the top. She’s made deals with CEOs of important companies who couldn’t direct her to the women’s bathroom, because she was the first woman who had been in that part of the building. Women, Sandberg insists, underestimate themselves constantly. When men are asked to explain their success, they attribute it to their personal awesomeness. When women are asked the same question, they name the people who helped them along the way, and consider themselves lucky. Remember when I was talking about ambition? I’m like a prophet. Kidding (especially since these talks were given a month ago. Being a prophet of the past isn’t nearly as impressive). But really– this stuff is everywhere.

The second TED talk I watched was by Hanna Rosin, the amazing journalist who recently wrote “The End of Men” for The Atlantic. It was called “New data on the rise of women.”

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Tampons are a great invention. They make my life a lot better. I’ve been thinking about them in a slightly different way since I wrote about how the elvyn women in their magical, pristinely forested world would probably not have any. And it makes me thankful to be human.

But here is where I am not very good at being human: most tampons scare me.

(source)

I’m young, but over the course of the time I’ve had any interest in them, tampons have evolved in dramatic, flagrantly unnatural ways. They went from chunks of fibrous white stuff in a heavy paper shell to sleek plastic tubes that cradle a molded dollop of synthetic cloth. They look like vicious little pink bullets. You’re supposed to shoot up.

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